I met a girl last night, she is a high school senior

[DLizzle]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
best grades should get valedictorian

[/ QUOTE ]

but whyyyyy?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because that's what it is. If you want to make some other title/reward in addition to or intead of valedictorian, feel free.

[/ QUOTE ]

untrue, that is how it is typically/traditionally done, but many other methods are used, and the word valedictorian in origin, refers to the person making the valedictory address, nothing else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valedictorian

[Blarg]

It has no value if it doesn't measure something concrete. By measuring grades only, it's one of the few things in high school that is about accomplishment rather than popularity. It imposes a real standard, which is probably a welcome relief to people perfectly able to compete but who don't have the right looking face, body, skin color, height, money, or lack of zits to come out on top in yet another popularity contest. In the real world outside high school, people are measured by things other than popularity all the time. In fact for many jobs, popularity counts for little if anything. It does students no disservice to measure them in a fair competition that has nothing to do with popularity.

Especially perverse is turning those things designed to measure things other than popularity into mere popularity contests all over again. High school has no shortage of exalting such things as it is, and certainly doesn't need to make meaningless the concept of valedictorian to create yet another opportunity to show the importance of being popular.

[DLizzle]

You make the title of valedictorian out to be some kind of contest, but I don't look at like that, even if you think my school's method would turn into a popularity contest. The valedictorian is more of a 'representative' than a 'winner'.

Who better to chose a representative than the people being represented? fwiw the valedictorian of my school was not really close to being the most popular student, had a fairly bad case of acne, and was pretty average in height/attractiveness/build/money, etc.

Most schools (I think?), including mine, have awards for things like the student that achieves the best grades overall, as well as for most individual courses. These students receive an award in the form of a certificate/plaque/trophy, as well as money/scholarships. It's not like the student with the best marks is shunned.

[Blarg]

If it's a vote based on non-tangible things, it's a contest, and any vote based on nothing tangible is a popularity contest pretty much by default.

I see this is a debasing of language, in that changing the meaning of being a valedictorian into something only tangentially related to grades -- and different for each school -- basically guts the word and the concept.

What's worse is saying that whoever is likely to give the best speech really is, or should be, some kind of criteria. If one of a hundred speeches given by high school students were worth a damn, I'd be surprised. I think of those occasions more like I think of pets, that is, if you think your pets really love you so much, open the door. If you think high school students are really enthralled by the valedictorian's speech or that it means anything to anybody, skip it and see what happens, or hold it anytime students are free not to hear it and just go home instead.

[DLizzle]

[ QUOTE ]

I see this is a debasing of language, in that changing the meaning of being a valedictorian into something only tangentially related to grades -- and different for each school -- basically guts the word and the concept.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not that Wikipedia is a 100% legit source, but:

"The term is an anglicized derivation of the Latin vale dicere ("to say farewell"), historically rooted in the valedictorian's traditional role as the final speaker at the graduation ceremony."

[Blarg]

The reason they gave the speech, as I understood it, was because they were thought of as the finest academic representative of the class. It wasn't a position meant to be open for grabs to almost anyone capable of pulling B's and popular enough to get votes. And academics is at least what school is ostensibly for and about, well worth esteeming on its own and without apology.

A distinction with no real parameters doesn't strike me as one worth making. As someone already said, there's class president for that already. As I already said, there's prom king and prom queen for that already too, along with the entirety of the rest of high school life. It seems like a good idea to have at least one distinction for one's high school years be based on academic merit. There's more than enough slumming for popularity going on in high school, and rewards for it, already. That's close to all high school is! It doesn't need to take over every last thing.

[zan nen]

I was one of the most gifted kids in elementary school. There was a sort of "rival" girl, very smart and a truly nice friend of mine. I took the SAT in 7th grade and got 1150 to her 1100. In high school she took every AP class and got 1590 while I got 1400 for the SAT. She got a scholarship to some ivy league school and I did the average joe public school thing. I never cared about high school education standings really. I guess seeing the big picture is awesome

[GTL]

[ QUOTE ]
I was one of the most gifted kids in elementary school. There was a sort of "rival" girl, very smart and a truly nice friend of mine. I took the SAT in 7th grade and got 1150 to her 1100. In high school she took every AP class and got 1590 while I got 1400 for the SAT. She got a scholarship to some ivy league school and I did the average joe public school thing. I never cared about high school education standings really. I guess seeing the big picture is awesome

[/ QUOTE ]

seeing the big picture won't bump you up from 1400 to 1590. she was probably smarter than you.

[blackize]

As others have stated, the real disappointment should be in the system and her parents.

The system is set up pretty poorly when an A in English is worth the same as an A in AP English.

It's the duty of her parents to prepare her to be successful in life. They should be pushing her to achieve her potential.

Those saying the valedictorian should be chosen by the students because their only responsibility is to give a speech are ignoring the boost they get on their college and scholarship applications by receiving that accolade.

[gusmahler]

Being HS valedictorian is absolutely meaningless the second you start college.

OTOH, she's also learned the very important skill of doing the bare minimum necessary to achieve a goal. Too bad the goal is so meaningless.